Tanning beds are presently used to darken skin as a safer, more effective alternative to sun bathing. Modern tanning beds incorporate light sources that make use of radiation that is minimally harmful to the skin, yet more effective for quickly altering skin pigmentation. Still, however, such rays are harmful to the eyes, and users must wear eye protection to avoid potentially serious retinal damage.
Even with modern specially engineered light sources that are intended to be less harmful to skin, frequent tanning bed users will often cover their entire face to avoid inevitable wrinkling of facial skin. The most common used device to cover the face is a towel. Unfortunately, towels do not consistently cover all the desired areas, and do not promote normal breathing. Also, if the area directly under the chin is not carefully and skillfully covered, an embarrassing tan line will result. A problem has thus remained to adequately cover the face against the tanning rays.
As a solution, some tanning bed manufacturers reduce or eliminate the number of tanning elements in the head areas of their tanning beds. This does reduce the most harmful effect from direct exposure, but indirect rays emanating from below the neck line still reach the facial area and do not completely eliminate the need for shielding.
The present invention can be used to effectively eliminate facial tanning, either in tanning beds or in natural surroundings, by providing a physical, preferably opaque shield that will effectively eliminate passage of tanning rays to the facial area, while permitting normal breathing. The present invention further provides for a consistent positionable shaded area adjacent the chin. Still further, the present invention provides the user with an easily portable screen configuration that may be folded between a flattened storage and transport condition, and an open operative configuration.